Colonial Gifts and the Charade of Recognition
As many have noted, the charade of “recognition” after years of military enablement by the West is a fine piece of imperial theatre and the height of Western hypocrisy. Fast upon the heels of “recognition” that this is a genocide, has come a flurry of recognition for a state that has always existed - although this formalized recognition gives it the legitimacy that the West decides the value of, as we have witnessed that the latter can see fit to discard supposedly internationally agreed upon statutes and frameworks when they no longer suit.
As Palestinian Ambassador Zomlot eloquently noted, this is Britain “correcting a historical injustice” of giving away a land and fragmenting an indigenously rooted people, “the cradle of civilizations”, on a colonial promise, a move that underscores the perpetually treacherous and mendacious nature of Western colonialism.
The fact that the formal recognition of Palestine has come at a point where Gaza has been reduced to rubble and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are dead, injured, missing and displaced, courtesy of the weapons and willing co-operation of those who now make a spectacle of conferring “respectable” status on Palestine, is not lost on most people.
This is the tragic irony of the Wests gracious bestowal of colonial gifts – gifts that come with a hefty price tag attached to them, the price always being applicable to the recipient, usually payable with their blood and life essence, and degrading and compromising to their humanity.
Much in the vein of blood diamonds, the ultimate Western gift, a commodity that the US constitutes the largest market for, “Israel” is one of the world’s leading producers of (in their cut and polished form – and thus less amenable to industry regulations) and that have been extensively used to fund the killing and maiming of civilians in Palestine. The diamond industry and all its attendant scam based on false inflation of intrinsic value, is a highly apt symbol of colonial gifts.
The freedoms and privileges, the thoughtless consumption and easily enjoyed liberties of the West are often an active product of the exploitation of countries in the “global south” a calculus of oppression that is an implicit part of the mathematics of colonialism as it were. Colonisation always comes at a cost for the colonised, one is built on the extraction of the life blood and dignity of the other.
Experts in Performativity
Affluence and power often comes with pomp and ceremony of the kind we saw when Trump visited Windsor Palace for the ostentatious royal banquet of Kings and power brokers. It is no surprise that Britain hosted a lavish state dinner in honour of the man responsible for the most significant portion of arms and military funding, used to carry out the ethnic cleansing of the people thrown to the wolves by them in 1917.
These types of mercantile colonial relations are sturdy and resilient, based on longstanding mutual benefit and power fuelled alliances that stand the test of time as they both get fat off the suffering of others.
The exaggerated ceremonial performance and nauseating excess of these types of events in a context where a genocide is happening, facilitated by the very people who wallow in the indulgence of it, snuffling foie gras, drinking fine wines and making self-important toasts with their bloody hands, is a hallmark of the self-importance of these people.
Performance is excessive formality and show, with nothing at its heart. This is why recently social media has seen a spate of videos showing side by side contrast footage of two worlds. Excess against suffering, falseness contrasted with a stark reality of parents holding white shrouds. Worst still, the two worlds are inextricably linked in a wider context where one enables the other.
Hence, coming back round to the performativity of formally recognizing the ever-diminishing land of Palestine whilst fuelling its genocide and refusing to stop supplying F-35 parts, by receiving the war criminal Isaac Herzog and grovelingly hosting the US that has repeatedly abused its veto power on the global stage, Britain remains true to its colonial origins and its heartless imperialism.
Starmer has had his hand forced by his own cabinet ministers threatening mutiny, as well as a degree of international pressure, so it is a move he has made with reluctance, a sacrifice for his remaining in power, and an act that is seen as largely symbolic, making no real difference on the ground.
Waspish Occupiers and Nervous Natives
Nonetheless there has been fury from “Israel” and the many Jewish Zionists around the world, with newspapers like the Mail, Times and Telegraph screeching headlines that echo Benjamin Mielowski’s inverted rhetoric about “rewarding Hamas”.
A Jewish caller “Carli” on LBC expressed her “fury” that the UK had formally recognized the country that her people were currently brutally destroying in their gleeful genocidal campaign, threatening to return to her “homeland”, where she will no doubt fit in perfectly amongst a virulently psychopathic, narcissistic wasps nest of creatures to whom empathy is as alien as entitlement is bred in.
The fury of “Israel” and Zionists at this modicum of recognition in the midst of their ongoing killing campaign that is still being actively contributed to by Britain, just displays and highlights how unhinged and unreasonable they are and always have been.
Their pattern worldwide – move in, take over, occupy, shriek blue murder while abusing their hosts marks them out as parasites of the first order, that even the British are increasingly wary of, as was apparent in the spate of comments on the recent incident of “Israeli” tourists defacing a Welsh pagan cross on a hillside and distorting it into the now genocidally symbolic Star of David with its sinister connotations.
Although many Britons have long swallowed the lie of our “special relationship” with, and supposed obligation to, Jewish Zionists, many are now realizing that the rationale behind this, is one of multilateral power relations between entities that overarch and surpass their everyday concerns: having allegiance to Jewish Zionism does no favours for the man in the street.
It is a myth and a lie that Jewish Supremacy and Zionism benefits the British or indeed the US citizen in any shape or form; they are not the upholders of civilized values any more than a person who maims young children and insists on their right to continue to do so, is a kindly and benign figure.
Jewish Supremacy and Zionism benefits only itself; an expanding multi-tentacled creature that is dark, invasive, well-camouflaged but all-powerful – and its aim is to encroach on all our rights and freedoms.
We owe it to ourselves to be vigilant of this 21st century monster, a monster composed of digitalized threat, cold machinery, AI surveillance and military power, run by the imperial overlords and warmongers who have no interest in our wellbeing. If they can do this Palestinians, they can and will eventually do it to everybody else.
Resist Occupation; Free Palestine
Like a fire burning in a closed system sucking up all the oxygen until it implodes obscene and compulsive consumption will eventually do the same. When and at what cost is the question.